Third time to Ireland for this lady! 2 times for work now, and once with friends. I've seen the East, the West, and now some of the South with this trip to the Dingle Penninsula- which is a pretty remote area in Ireland and quite the hike. The best way to reach Dingle: connect in Dublin and fly to the very tiny Kerry airport. From Kerry it was about an hour drive to the adorable town of Dingle. To drive from Dublin would take around 4 hours, and from the Shannon airport in the west would take about 2.5 hours. So your best bet is flying on one of the two daily direct flights Dublin to Kerry and vice versa to get back. I did just that and arrived Monday around 11am into Dingle, where I was dropped off at the Waterfront B&B. It was in a great location, the town is very small and it was right across from the marina, so all things in the town were really a 5-10 minute walk. This was like staying at a Grandparents house, it only had 6 rooms in the whole place, a very small dining area for breakfasts, and living area with a mini-fridge and fire place. The room itself was compact but had smaller areas kind of cut off from one another- so small bedroom, small room with a couch and coffee table, and small, very cold bathroom (the heating in this place was not the best, and did not reach the bathroom). Ireland gave me it's classic weather it's famous for- 50's, rainy more often than not, damp, but there were a couple days in Dublin of breezy sunny spring moments. What else would you expect. My first day consisted of several power naps at the Waterfront B&B, a tour of the Dingle Distillery just down the road (15 min walk), where we were treated to lunch and a tour of the distillery itself, and then the warehouse. From there I met the Dingle team at dinner and drinks in town at Dick Mack's, which is the pub you must go to when in Dingle. Next store was a Husband and Wife team of fishermen who ran a fish and chips restaurant, so they catered our dinner at Dick Mack's. Definitely the best fish and chips I've ever had- the fish was Dorado and super fresh, highly recommend.
Tuesday: I did a group hike starting around 10am along the coast. Only about 5 miles- took us a few hours. More of a stroll than a hike, but beautiful scenery and good views of the islands like the Sleeping Giant. Apparently we were supposed to do a different hike up the 2nd highest mountain in Ireland, but the weather prevented this and we did our coastal walk instead. We ended at Kruger's bar- which was a step back in time- super old school Irish pub in the middle of a small residential neighborhood. From there we headed back to the Dingle distillery for a BBQ with live Irish music.
Wednesday: Caught the morning flight from Kerry to Dublin. The drive to and from the Kerry airport is actually one of the most scenic, feels like you are driving Ireland's version of Big Sur. You go right by Inch Beach, which is huge and pretty famous, on one side is mountains and the other is ocean, wish I had had more time to explore this area. If I had had more time in Dingle what else would I have done? They had some coastal boat excursions, scenic drives, and lots of other pubs I didn't have time to check out. Other than that, Dingle is pretty simple, you could feasibly see everything in just a couple of days.
In Dublin I stayed at the Brooks hotel right in the middle of downtown, very good location with tons of bars and restaurants all over the place. The room itself was pretty tiny, but the bed was comfy and it was an upgrade from the Waterfront B&B. I went for a lunchtime run in St Stephan's Green Park, a very cute park which seemed to be the best and closest spot for running. Not really a city you can run along the streets, way too many people. After my run we checked out the Irish whiskey museum, which is super cute and a good way to kill an hour while getting an entertaining education on the history of Irish Whiskey. For dinner we went to Mulligan and Haines right by our hotel. Not a lot of standouts with Irish food but their bruschetta was pretty decent.
Thursday: Ran around St Stephens green in the morning, breakfast at the hotel which was decent (if I had been on vacation I would have looked into going to one of the million bakeries around for breakfast). Walked to city center for my covid test (needed a negative test 24 hours before your flight to get back into the US). Lunch at Brales in the Westbury hotel was really good- very good soup and bowl of mussels. Then I had to work a whiskey trade show, and after grabbed dinner at Bua Bia (more of a bar than dinner spot, but it was Thursday night and everything was packed. I liked their sweet potato fries).
Friday: Home! Dublin airport was a hot hot mess, if you are going anytime soon give yourself a lot of time ahead to wait in lines! So many people missed their flights while I was there.